I only made it through a couple of episodes of Dollhouse before giving up, but I thought the Avengers was dumb, and everyone else seems to love it, so what do I know?

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I'm not convinced it wasn't dumb. I'm saying I loved it. You have read a comic-book before, right? They're not exactly Tolstoy. But they're not supposed to be, they're supposed to be fun and exciting and make you laugh. A heady story doesn't do that for the majority of humanity, in fact it does just the opposite on all counts.

I thought the Avengers was soso. I said that when I first watched it and I doubt my opinion of it will change anytime soon. It is what most people wanted, though. I thought Iron Man 3 and TDKR were both better.

This is like a low budget, high school romance version of Bourne Identity, with an alternate cheesy ending.

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I think I've seen most of it. Completely forgettable stuff. I saw that Twilight guy and thought that they tried to cash in on his success as quickly as possible. I don't believe he can act.

I watched a movie called Walled In last night. Mediocre "horror" stuff. I also watched Margin Call, a pretty interesting movie about the world of (collapsing) finance... Good acting on this one, and good casting choices.

I just watched The Avengers again last night. I still love that movie. So much fun. The Helicarrier scene could have been the conclusion to any other action movie, but that was just some halfway point action to keep the pace up, with a gigantic battle for the conclusion that I still enjoy watching after so many times I haven't counted.

I also saw the second half of Pleasantville this morning. I love that movie too for completely different reasons.

And a few days ago I saw most of Seeking A Friend For the End Of The World. It was very sad at the end. Carrel played too much of a mope for my tastes.

I'm not convinced it wasn't dumb. I'm saying I loved it. You have read a comic-book before, right? They're not exactly Tolstoy. But they're not supposed to be, they're supposed to be fun and exciting and make you laugh. A heady story doesn't do that for the majority of humanity, in fact it does just the opposite on all counts.

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Sorry, I should have been clearer. I mean I thought Avengers was dumb for a comic book movie, but again, I realize I'm in the minority there.

And for the record, I think the only comic book I have ever read was Eastman and Laird's TMNT.

What a useless movie. As with most prequels, all it does it take away from the mystique of the original. And really, humanoid aliens in the Aliens universe? Fucking lame. Aliens was one of the few sci-fi franchises that avoided the humanoid alien trope that is both ridiculous and ubiquitous.

Yeah, yeah, I get that they're humanoid because they're our progenitors, but that's way dumber than the simple, but elegant premise of Alien and Aliens: there's some nasty shit out there in the universe, and it is nothing like us. After all, that's what was so compelling about the aliens in those earlier movies; they lived up to their name.

What a useless movie. As with most prequels, all it does it take away from the mystique of the original. And really, humanoid aliens in the Aliens universe? Fucking lame. Aliens was one of the few sci-fi franchises that avoided the humanoid alien trope that is both ridiculous and ubiquitous.

I wanted to like Prometheus a lot, but I felt it was pointless in the end. Yet another story that wasn't necessary to be told. What's with all those prequels anyway? When you see filmmakers that have all the financial and artistic freedom in the world spend it like that it's very disappointing. Create something new, for crying out loud. A new universe, new ideas, new types of extra-terrestrials.

It's a pity because Prometheus was a well-made movie, with the right amount of special effects and action. At least for me.

What a useless movie. As with most prequels, all it does it take away from the mystique of the original. And really, humanoid aliens in the Aliens universe? Fucking lame. Aliens was one of the few sci-fi franchises that avoided the humanoid alien trope that is both ridiculous and ubiquitous.

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Er, you do realize that the xenomorph is humanoid right?

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Only vaguely, and my understanding is any similarities to human physiology has to do with the fact they share some of our DNA due to the face-rape.

What a useless movie. As with most prequels, all it does it take away from the mystique of the original. And really, humanoid aliens in the Aliens universe? Fucking lame. Aliens was one of the few sci-fi franchises that avoided the humanoid alien trope that is both ridiculous and ubiquitous.

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Er, you do realize that the xenomorph is humanoid right?

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Only vaguely, and my understanding is any similarities to human physiology has to do with the fact they share some of our DNA due to the face-rape.

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Just sayin'. I like the movie but I can't fault anyone for not liking it; it's seriously flawed.

Pacific Rim - 7/10
Robots fighting monsters....that's about it. The story and characters are backburner, but the effects are cool and it's entertaining popcorn fluff, but, though fun, overall it's all forgettable. I gets docked cause for me it ran way too long, there is absolutely no reason a movie like this should be anywhere near the 2 1/2 hour mark. Also, it just seems like one big mish-mash of overdone and cliched ideas and themes we've seen too much of from big summer movies of years long past.
Still, overall it was probably the most entertaining big summer popcorn flick I've seen so far this summer (I haven't seen Fast 6)...which is less a statement of praise, and more a statement of how completely lackluster and disappointing the big budget Hollywood movies have been this summer.

You want action? This is the movie for you. It's fairly non-stop, it's an Indonesian film, so you have to put with subtitles. A swat team goes into a highrise to take down a drug lord and his gang, it all goes to pot very quickly. Not much really to say except that if you like action movies, this is a must see.

This movie sadly fails to live up to its awesome premise. Not enough jokes and the few that are present rarely land. It does get the whole steam punk Nazi look correct though complete with mad scientists and iron UFOs.

The Fast and the Furious series - 7/10

After enjoying the hell out of Fast 6 (easily the summers best movie) I decided to rewatch the rest of the series. I remember enjoying them all, but would they hold up as well on a repeat viewing? Turns out the answer to this question is yes, with two surprising exceptions.

First of all, these are straight up popcorn movies for car lovers. If you don't like high speed crashes of cool exotic cars (a GT40, a Jensen Interceptor!), bromance, thumping beats, gonzo stunts etc then these movies aren't for you. Fast Five and its sequel are really a cut above the rest of the movies; they basically represent the series finding itself. In fact I'd go so far as to recommend Fast 6 to anyone who likes action movies. It's that good. FF4 opens with some great stunts and has a thrilling foot chase after that but then runs out of gas. FF3: Tokyo Drift is a lot better than I remember it being and Han is a really interesting character in the movie. FF2 is the first movie that feels like a "Fast & Furious" movie with significantly better driving sequences than the first one and an introduction of the "gonzo" stuntwork that would become a series signature. FF1 kinda tries to take itself seriously which is an error. This and the reboot Fast & Furious are my least favorite in the series.

I guess I should give Tokyo Drift anther view I saw it once but really didn't care for it but now I realize I don't remember much about it. I did enjoy the other ones, haven't seen 6 but have heard a lot of good things about it.

The Wolverine: I enjoyed it a lot. It was a lot better than the last Wolverine movie. It wasn't Shakespeare, but it was a good movie. Just be sure to stay through the ending credits. There is a setup for the next X-men movie. 8.5-9/10

The Wolverine: I enjoyed it a lot. It was a lot better than the last Wolverine movie. It wasn't Shakespeare, but it was a good movie. Just be sure to stay through the ending credits. There is a setup for the next X-men movie. 8.5-9/10

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I saw the ending on Youtube. That would have been worth staying in the theater for.

The movie itself was everything that I wanted from it. Wolverine cutting up Yakuza with his knife-hands. Solid 8/10. I want more.

RIPD: 7/10 It was fun. It has a very similar feel to MIB. It isn't as good as MIB 1, but it was in the same ballpark as MIB2. The idea of heaven stocking its police department with shady cops is amusing to me. I recommend it as a cable watch if you liked MIB.

World War Z: 8/10 I liked this one a fair bit. It is my understanding it is completely different from the book. I have yet to read the book and as such that doesn't matter to me. I can see how originally the authors had toyed with some rather lame side story lines, but either the writers or the director chose to remove them at the last second. The movie is a lot better for it. It gets right to the point early on. What could be rather painful story elements are done quickly and efficiently in a realistic manner. That left the main story line to proceed. I enjoyed it.

That just leaves Two Guns to go see this weekend. With Two Guns, I will have seen all of the summer movies I was particularly interested in seeing.

Honestly this movie was really saved by the last 20-30 minutes or so IMO. It's one of those movies that's hard to talk about without spoilers too. Let's just say I enjoyed the story behind the story more than the story itself for the majority of the movie.

There are many different ways it could have ended, but the way it did end was the most predictable and expected. For instance, a less violent and more political ending that showed us more of the inner workings of Elysium was also possible. As it is the ending was well done so I don't count it against the movie too much.

I avoided District 9 because I found the comparison of black people to slimy, clicking space bugs to be distasteful. I may check it out now after seeing Elysium but I suspect Elysium is the better of the two.

Elysium - 8.5 / 10 - A good Sci-fi movie. I enjoyed Elysium much more then District 9, then again, I wasn't too keen on District 9 to begin with, but I did like Elysium. They definitely could have done more with the story and characters and I agree the ending was hokie, but it was something I could overlook since I thought the overall style and presentation of the movie was well done. Overall it was a good sci-fi movie. I would say it's currently my favorite big-budget movie of the year.

As much as I love the Coen brothers, I haven't seen enough of their films. I particularly enjoyed this one for the Lynchian feel it has. Not telling me everything and leaving it up for me to decide is a good thing. The portrayal of an intellectual attempting to relate to a common man was hilarious and awkward. John Goodman's role is brilliant, especially near the end.

Entirely forgettable. I think their effects budget was cut at some point too (probably to pay for the Rock). Aside from destroying London, there wasn't much going on visually. Sure, tjhere were a lot of effects, but most of them were pretty small affairs compared to how much was going on in the first movie.The cast was drastically reduced from the first movie as well. I was generally unimpressed by everything that happened.

I really like this movie but can't decide whether they just blatantly ripped off a bunch of other movies or they are paying homage. Just about every scene you can say "this reminds me of...." but I'm a huge Philip K. Dick fan and the story has the same formula...the first twist which is something you can see coming if you're paying attention and then a second twist which you won't see coming. This is a solid sci-fi movie.

Olympus has Fallen 2/10

Most of you know I'm a huge action film fan, I even love B action movies but this movie is just bad. There's just so much wrong with this movie that I really don't feel like typing it all out. I was drunk when I watched this movie and still couldn't enjoy it, that's how bad it is.

I really like this movie but can't decide whether they just blatantly ripped off a bunch of other movies or they are paying homage. Just about every scene you can say "this reminds me of...." but I'm a huge Philip K. Dick fan and the story has the same formula...the first twist which is something you can see coming if you're paying attention and then a second twist which you won't see coming. This is a solid sci-fi movie.

The Conjuring - 7.5/10 - This could have been a really great creepy atmospheric ghost movie the likes of The Others and The Orphanage, that is if the end act had been as good as the first two-thirds and held back and relied on atmosphere, If it had done that I honestly would have given this a 9. But it fell apart at the end for me, by doing to much and going the Hollywood route of all hell literally breaking loose, showing the "monster", etc., etc. Hollywood needs to learn that sometimes that what we don't see and letting the audience's imagination run can sometimes be scarier then what we do see. Overall a decent flick, but I liked Insidious more.....and I especially liked The Others and The Orphanage even more that.

Hollywood needs to learn that sometimes that what we don't see and letting the audience's imagination run can sometimes be scarier then what we do see. Overall a decent flick, but I liked Insidious more.....and I especially liked The Others and The Orphanage even more that.

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Hollywood knows, they just don't care.

I forgot about The Others, that was a good movie. Just the title alone is scary.

The Worlds End - 9/10....that is, for fans of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy.
As someone who really enjoyed the Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz...and who loved Edgar Wright's Spaced..this was a worthy follow up and a great way to cap off the film "trilogy". I will also say it was one of the most unique and fun movies I've seen in a very long time....but with that I will add that this movie is definitely not for everyone....or even most people (especially American audiences) for that matter. If you're a fan of Edgar Wright's stuff, this is definitely something to check out...if you're not, you might want to look somewhere else.

Pretty good, not great. Worth seeing once. Those characters were such morons...

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Better when watched with other people. I sat through it again when my parents watched it last night, and had fun goofing on the characters (yes, I know it was based on a true story, it reminded me of that six times).

I watched The Expendables 2 last night. I was able to give the first one a pass, but not this time. This was a total mess, badly written with serious problems of even getting the characters from point A to point B. It had trouble of making use of the basic "expendables" line up, and even more so with the added action heroes. Norris is put there seemingly for validating those old internet Norris-jokes, that was basically his entire presence. With Arnold they attempted the "I'll be back" joke twice, we get it, thanks. Bruce Willis seemed to me that he was ready busting out laughing "joke's over guys, where's my paycheck?". Nearly everyone is old and broken, give it a rest. Lots of consequence-free action and that's it. I forced myself laughing a couple of times for the sake of cheesiness and that is the best I can say about the whole thing.

Or I might just not get it. The movie can be totally "meta" in the way it's written because as a matter of fact, the true "expendables" in this movie is not the team of protagonists, but the dying legions of interchangeable extras.

Picked at random from Netflix new releases last night when the wife suggested we watch a movie after the little one went to bed.

Animated, and full of scatological, misogynistic, sexual, drug and other crude humor...yet still (or as a result) entertaining. It's kind of all over the place as far as plot goes, but the art has it's own style and a lot of the little throw-away jokes or sight gags were pretty funny.

Plus Guillermo del Toro doing the voice of a tiny shitball (literally, no shit) is pretty inspired casting if you ask me.

Obviously not for everybody, but the wife and I got some chuckles and felt like our random movie choice panned out pretty well. Only downside is that the subtitles were pretty badly out of synch throughout the movie, which made an already difficult to follow movie even moreso. Not sure if that was just Netflix being sketchy, or if the DVD would have the same issue.